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Can we talk? Trump’s riding high – and he’s got a lot to say
WASHINGTON — Can we talk? Donald Trump would like to chat.
And, boy, is he ever.
Riding high after Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s successful confirmation, the president has been on a rollicking press tour of late.
He’s inviting reporters up to his private cabin on Air Force One. He’s calling in to his
On Thursday alone, Trump held four separate press availabilities, including one that featured a profanity-laced Oval Office performance by Kanye West, the rapper and producer who has emerged as Trump’s top Hollywood fan. And that’s not counting the more than 45 minutes he spent on the phone calling in to “Fox & Friends.”
The president’s inclination to chat comes as Trump has been enjoying a spate of good news for his administration.
While the Russia investigation still looms and polls still predict major Republican losses in the House in next month’s midterm elections, Trump has been logging a series of wins, including appointing a second Supreme Court Justice to the bench and reaching an updated North American trade deal with Canada and Mexico. The stream of negative headlines that have been a constant presence through most of Trump’s administration, has abated — at least for a time.
“I think he’s having a lot of fun right now,” said former campaign adviser Barry Bennett.
“There hasn’t been a bad story in over week,” Bennett marveled.
Said White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “The President is his best messenger and it’s always a great thing when the American people can hear directly from him.”
Trump’s recent media blitz began on Saturday, when it was clear that Kavanaugh had the votes to be confirmed after a bruising fight in the Senate. The president was en route to Topeka, Kansas, for a rally as the final vote was happening, and he invited the small group of reporters aboard up Air Force One up to his private cabin to watch history unfold.
When the vote was cast, Trump delivered a double thumbs-up from his desk and declared it all “very, very good.”
Trump had already spoken with reporters as he departed the White House that day, and he stopped to chat again after he landed, to share details of the congratulatory call he’d made to Kavanaugh and his family.
After an hour-plus rally that night, Trump was back at it, calling up one of his
After a brief respite for golf on Sunday, Trump was back at it Monday, taking reporters’ questions both as he left the White House and again as he returned from a speech to police chiefs in Florida, weighing in on everything from the employment status of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to Taylor Swift’s foray into politics to endorse two Democratic candidates.
He said he now likes her music “about 25
Later that night, Trump presided over a ceremonial swearing-in for Kavanaugh at the White House, where he railed against Democrats for trying to scuttle his choice,
On Tuesday, Trump began his day with a surprise press availability announcing that U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley would be leaving her post at the end of the year. After holding forth for nearly 20 minutes, it seemed Trump had, for the moment, exhausted reporters’ questions.
“Any other questions?” he asked to rare silence.
But that was just the beginning. Trump’s day also included an Oval Office interview with New York Magazine, a 15 minute question-and- answer session with reporters on the South Lawn as he departed the White House for a rally in Iowa, and another conversation with reporters aboard Air Force One.
Trump also recorded an interview with the local NBC affiliate before taking the stage at his rally, which lasted well over an hour.
On Wednesday, as Hurricane Michael was about to make landfall, Trump began his day with a storm briefing, during which he also took questions on topics including a missing Saudi journalist and potential replacements for Haley. He also took questions at a bill signing and after landing in Pennsylvania for another rally, where he said the Federal Reserve had “gone crazy.”
After his rally and interviews with the Washington Examiner and a local television station, Trump headed home.
But he wasn’t done for the night. There was one last call, at 11 p.m., to Fox News Channel’s Shannon Bream.
Less than 12 hours later, Trump was back at it, spending more than 45 minutes on the phone answering questions from his
Yet to come: Chatting at two bill signings, including one attended by Kid Rock and other musicians, a forum on drug trafficking, and that epic pre-lunch appearance with Kanye West.
As Trump headed to lunch with his guests, he was anything but talked out: “We’re going to have lunch,” he said. “We’re going to talk.”
___
Follow Colvin on Twitter at https://twitter.com/colvinj
Jill Colvin, The Associated Press
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Mortgaging Canada’s energy future — the hidden costs of the Carney-Smith pipeline deal
Much of the commentary on the Carney-Smith pipeline Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has focused on the question of whether or not the proposed pipeline will ever get built.
That’s an important topic, and one that deserves to be examined — whether, as John Robson, of the indispensable Climate Discussion Nexus, predicted, “opposition from the government of British Columbia and aboriginal groups, and the skittishness of the oil industry about investing in a major project in Canada, will kill [the pipeline] dead.”
But I’m going to ask a different question: Would it even be worth building this pipeline on the terms Ottawa is forcing on Alberta? If you squint, the MOU might look like a victory on paper. Ottawa suspends the oil and gas emissions cap, proposes an exemption from the West Coast tanker ban, and lays the groundwork for the construction of one (though only one) million barrels per day pipeline to tidewater.
But in return, Alberta must agree to jack its industrial carbon tax up from $95 to $130 per tonne at a minimum, while committing to tens of billions in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) spending, including the $16.5 billion Pathways Alliance megaproject.
Here’s the part none of the project’s boosters seem to want to mention: those concessions will make the production of Canadian hydrocarbon energy significantly more expensive.
As economist Jack Mintz has explained, the industrial carbon tax hike alone adds more than $5 USD per barrel of Canadian crude to marginal production costs — the costs that matter when companies decide whether to invest in new production. Layer on the CCUS requirements and you get another $1.20–$3 per barrel for mining projects and $3.60–$4.80 for steam-assisted operations.
While roughly 62% of the capital cost of carbon capture is to be covered by taxpayers — another problem with the agreement, I might add — the remainder is covered by the industry, and thus, eventually, consumers.
Total damage: somewhere between $6.40 and $10 US per barrel. Perhaps more.
“Ultimately,” the Fraser Institute explains, “this will widen the competitiveness gap between Alberta and many other jurisdictions, such as the United States,” that don’t hamstring their energy producers in this way. Producers in Texas and Oklahoma, not to mention Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, or Russia, aren’t paying a dime in equivalent carbon taxes or mandatory CCUS bills. They’re not so masochistic.
American refiners won’t pay a “low-carbon premium” for Canadian crude. They’ll just buy cheaper oil or ramp up their own production.
In short, a shiny new pipe is worthless if the extra cost makes barrels of our oil so expensive that no one will want them.
And that doesn’t even touch on the problem for the domestic market, where the higher production cost will be passed onto Canadian consumers in the form of higher gas and diesel prices, home heating costs, and an elevated cost of everyday goods, like groceries.
Either way, Canadians lose.
So, concludes Mintz, “The big problem for a new oil pipeline isn’t getting BC or First Nation acceptance. Rather, it’s smothering the industry’s competitiveness by layering on carbon pricing and decarbonization costs that most competing countries don’t charge.” Meanwhile, lurking underneath this whole discussion is the MOU’s ultimate Achilles’ heel: net-zero.
The MOU proudly declares that “Canada and Alberta remain committed to achieving Net-Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.” As Vaclav Smil documented in a recent study of Net-Zero, global fossil-fuel use has risen 55% since the 1997 Kyoto agreement, despite trillions spent on subsidies and regulations. Fossil fuels still supply 82% of the world’s energy.
With these numbers in mind, the idea that Canada can unilaterally decarbonize its largest export industry in 25 years is delusional.
This deal doesn’t secure Canada’s energy future. It mortgages it. We are trading market access for self-inflicted costs that will shrink production, scare off capital, and cut into the profitability of any potential pipeline. Affordable energy, good jobs, and national prosperity shouldn’t require surrendering to net-zero fantasy.If Ottawa were serious about making Canada an energy superpower, it would scrap the anti-resource laws outright, kill the carbon taxes, and let our world-class oil and gas compete on merit. Instead, we’ve been handed a backroom MOU which, for the cost of one pipeline — if that! — guarantees higher costs today and smothers the industry that is the backbone of the Canadian economy.
This MOU isn’t salvation. It’s a prescription for Canadian decline.
The cost of the bureaucracy increased by $6 billion last year, according to newly released numbers in Public Accounts disclosures. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to immediately shrink the bureaucracy.
“The Public Accounts show the cost of the federal bureaucracy is out of control,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Tinkering around the edges won’t cut it, Carney needs to take urgent action to shrink the bloated federal bureaucracy.”
The federal bureaucracy cost taxpayers $71.4 billion in 2024-25, according to the Public Accounts. The cost of the federal bureaucracy increased by $6 billion, or more than nine per cent, over the last year.
The federal bureaucracy cost taxpayers $39.6 billion in 2015-16, according to the Public Accounts. That means the cost of the federal bureaucracy increased 80 per cent over the last 10 years. The government added 99,000 extra bureaucrats between 2015-16 and 2024-25.
Half of Canadians say federal services have gotten worse since 2016, despite the massive increase in the federal bureaucracy, according to a Leger poll.
Not only has the size of the bureaucracy increased, the cost of consultants, contractors and outsourcing has increased as well. The government spent $23.1 billion on “professional and special services” last year, according to the Public Accounts. That’s an 11 per cent increase over the previous year. The government’s spending on professional and special services more than doubled since 2015-16.
“Taxpayers should not be paying way more for in-house government bureaucrats and way more for outside help,” Terrazzano said. “Mere promises to find minor savings in the federal bureaucracy won’t fix Canada’s finances.
“Taxpayers need Carney to take urgent action and significantly cut the number of bureaucrats now.”
Table: Cost of bureaucracy and professional and special services, Public Accounts
| Year | Bureaucracy | Professional and special services |
|
$71,369,677,000 |
$23,145,218,000 |
|
|
$65,326,643,000 |
$20,771,477,000 |
|
|
$56,467,851,000 |
$18,591,373,000 |
|
|
$60,676,243,000 |
$17,511,078,000 |
|
|
$52,984,272,000 |
$14,720,455,000 |
|
|
$46,349,166,000 |
$13,334,341,000 |
|
|
$46,131,628,000 |
$12,940,395,000 |
|
|
$45,262,821,000 |
$12,950,619,000 |
|
|
$38,909,594,000 |
$11,910,257,000 |
|
|
$39,616,656,000 |
$11,082,974,000 |
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